Spock biography children. The true story of the legendary educator Dr. Spock. Basic principles - from childhood

According to his book, several generations of babies were raised in different countries of the world, and he himself built his theories, constantly recalling the sad experience of childhood and the authoritarian mother ... He became rich and famous all over the world, but eventually became a hostage to his own success. Dr. Benjamin Spock is perhaps one of the brightest and most controversial personalities in the history of pedagogy and child psychiatry.

Tyrant mother

The famous psychiatrist, author of a book widely known in the Soviet Union under the title "Child and Care for Him", was born in 1903 in New York into a large family. Benjamin's father spent most of his time at work. But his wife stayed at home and had the opportunity to completely recoup her children, suppressing their own "I". According to the memoirs of an American psychiatrist, his mother did not recognize any opinions other than her own. Even doctors were not an authority for her: the woman believed that she herself knew how best to treat and educate her children. And at the same time, the mother was a fanatical Puritan and strictly watched every step of her children. Endless punishment and constant drilling were common in this family.

As Benjamin Spock admitted many years later, his mother raised him as a prude and a snob. It is not surprising that this led to disastrous consequences: three of her children, as adults, were forced to undergo psychiatric treatment, and almost everyone (except for Ben) had problems in their personal lives.

Spock was perhaps the only one who, under conditions of constant tyranny, was able to remain himself. Having entered Yale University, he felt freedom and left his mother's control, leaving home and preferring an independent student life.

During his studies, Ben was actively involved in combing, successfully competing for the Yale team, and a few years later he moved to New York, where he soon got married.

"Bible" for parents

Having received the profession of a doctor, Spock plunged headlong into pediatrics and psychiatry. Observing the prejudices of young mothers and their mistakes in raising children, he analyzed them on the basis of his knowledge, as well as the works of Sigmund Freud. At the same time, the young psychiatrist constantly recalled his own childhood and relationship with his mother, subjecting them to deep analysis. As a result, Spock came up with a theory about how to raise a psychologically healthy child, and began publishing his own books.

At the age of 40, Spock took on the task of preparing a handbook for toddler care that would replace conventional prejudices and outdated false theories. He did not leave work on the book even during his two-year service as a doctor in the navy.

When Benjamin Spock released the world's famous bestseller in childcare, many Americans took it as a revelation and called it "The Book of Common Sense." Still experiencing a subconscious panic fear of his mother, the writer specially brought this book to her so that she would read it and give her verdict. He waited with horror that the woman would be furious and smash his brainchild to smithereens, and was very happy when she condescendingly said: "In principle, there are reasonable advice."

The book enriched Spock, and many young parents around the world have embraced it as "the bible for young mothers." The author himself absolutely did not expect such fanatical reverence and, at every opportunity, tried to convey to the public that his advice was not a panacea at all and it was not necessary to blindly follow everything he recommended.

However, it was too late: such insane popularity, naturally, went sideways for him. First, fanatical adherence to his advice without taking into account the characteristics of each specific family led to the fact that the recommendations "did not work." And after a couple of decades, this caused a backlash: more and more often, his research began to be called an erroneous theory, and education "according to Spock" - a guide on "how to ditch a child."

Feeding - not by the clock, but by the mind

Now, for some reason, it is generally accepted that Dr. Spock taught to feed a baby strictly once every four hours, for which his theory is criticized by modern supporters of a free breastfeeding schedule. In fact, this is not the case. In his book, Spock just talked about the fact that a young mother, when choosing a feeding rule for her child, needs to choose her own schedule - based on how best her child is. But if she has already chosen one or another option, it is advisable not to change it. The only thing he warned newly-made mothers against was to breastfeed a baby every five minutes - with or without reason.

Home is not a prison

Dr. Spock's assertion that a young mother did not have to lock herself in four walls, giving all her attention only to the child, seemed revolutionary in those years. The doctor wrote that if a woman wants to go on a visit or to the cinema, she should not deny herself this, and for this she needs to ask a nanny or someone close to sit with the child. He rightly noted that if you fanatically engage in a child, exhausting yourself to exhaustion, it will negatively affect your own health, lead to depression, and can also lead to discord with your husband, who will feel superfluous.

Unfortunately, many young parents took this advice in a peculiar way: they literally forgot about their children, entrusting them to nannies and educators and spending all their free time at work or in clubs. Up to 40 million children born in the 1950s and 1960s were reared "after Spock." Later, the doctor was accused of being responsible for creating a generation of long-haired hippies who grew up in an atmosphere of permissiveness.

He was considered a hippie

Interestingly, if now Spock's book is considered old-fashioned and too harsh, then during his lifetime it was not at all like that. American conservatives took advice on loving their children, hugging and kissing, listening to them and following intuition as permissiveness, and some opponents of his theory even ranked Spock as a hippie. And the fact that the psychiatrist opposed nuclear tests and the war in Vietnam only consolidated his image of a rebel.

Dr. Spock speaks to the press after being cleared of formal charges of agitating youth not to go to recruiting offices. Boston, 1968 / Photo: washingtonpost.com

Towards the end of Benjamin Spock's life, sales of his bestselling childcare began to decline, and when he became seriously ill, his second wife was unable to raise the necessary amount for treatment. After all, he spent almost all the money he earned on charity.

Benjamin Spock died, just short of his 95th birthday and the release of the seventh edition of his book, timed to coincide with it. And they began to gradually forget about his guidance on childcare in our country.

Of course, the peculiarities of the upbringing of our mothers and grandmothers seem strange to us. By the way, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were very peculiar

Dr. Spock's method teaches to appreciate and love the child. But Benjamin Spock's own experience was not as perfect as described in his books.

From a large family

Benjamin Spock is one of six children born to lawyer Ives Spock and is the oldest. That is why, from the very childhood, he felt a responsibility to his younger ones and actively helped his mother to look after brothers and sisters.

Basic principles - from childhood

The Benjamin family adhered to the principles of healthy eating and conditioning. So, children did not eat sweets until they were five years old, slept under a canopy on the street in any weather, took an active part in household chores instead of walking with their peers.

Fearful child

Benjamin's mom, Louise Mildred, was an authoritarian regime. Children were punished for transgressions, and children were afraid of their mother. Later, Dr. Spock himself will tell about this with sadness: he grew up as a fearful child, cowardly not only in front of his mother, but also other people.

Ship doctor

Spock had always dreamed of being a doctor, though a ship's doctor, because the sea and everything connected with it fascinated Benjamin.

Freud is to blame for everything

He was not destined to go on a sea voyage: Benjamin read Freud, and his writings had a huge impact on Spock. The thought that illnesses did not happen on their own haunted, and Spock decided to become a pediatrician. He soon enrolled at Yol University.

Olympic medalist

Spock had excellent physical characteristics and a height of 189 cm. At the University of Benjamin, he was admitted to the rowing sports team, and he reached considerable heights in this sport: he participated in the Olympic Games in France in 1924 and won a gold medal.

Heart attack

The relationship with his mother was uneasy throughout Benjamin's life. When he, a medical student, brought Jane Cheney's fiancée into the house, Mom faked a heart attack. However, the father who was at that moment at home “successfully cured his wife's heart disease”, but this did not affect Benjamin's personal life - he married his bride.

Child death and syphilis

The young family experienced a tragedy - the death of their newborn child. Spock's mother said that the daughter-in-law and her pedigree were to blame, because, as she found out, the father of Benjamin's wife was sick with syphilis. After this scandal, Benjamin and his wife stopped communicating with Louise Mildred and moved to New York.

Doctor with weirdness

This is how many parents of little patients reacted to Benjamin Spock. They were confused by the point of view of Dr. Spock, who said that a child is a person, he must be respected, not burdened with work and given the opportunity to enjoy childhood. In those days, children were trained from an early age for hard work, and no one thought about the personality and the impact of punishment on the psyche. As a result, the doctor had few patients, but they talked and wrote about him.

Best-seller

That changed when Benjamin Spock released a series of books. Each of them was addressed to parents, they talked about the psychological aspects of upbringing, how to take care of children. One of the books, The Child and Caring for Him, became a bestseller.

Theory and practice

Benjamin was strong in the theory of "how to raise children," in practice, by no means. He himself admitted that he was overly strict with his children and never kissed his sons. Perhaps this is how the mother's genes and her authoritarian stance towards parenting influenced him.

Son doctor

Despite the cold relationship with his father, the eldest son John followed in Benjamin's footsteps and became a doctor. The younger chose the path of an architect.

Test of Glory

When Spock became a famous doctor, his wife began to be jealous of him for fame and lean on alcohol. Benjamin was in his 70s when the family finally broke up.

Young wife

Less than a year after the divorce, Dr. Spock decided to remarry. The 73-year-old groom found himself a young bride, who was just over 30. Some say she married him for love, others say that the bride was looking for fame.

Beloved grandson

Fate brought Spock together with his grandson Peter, son of Michael, and the old man's heart melted. He wholeheartedly imbued with his grandson. However, Peter committed suicide, the doctors stated that the 22-year-old boy suffered from depression. The 79-year-old Benjamin survived the death of his beloved grandson with a heart attack and stroke and blamed everything on his son Michael, who “launched” the child.

Money to society

Benjamin Spock's books have been a resounding success, such as The Child and His Care, with a circulation of 50 million in 40 languages. This book brought Benjamin millions, but the material side of the issue was of little interest to him. He gave money to hundreds of charitable foundations, signed invoices without looking, and by old age his multimillion-dollar fortune was dissolved.

Fatal disease

To fight cancer, which was discovered in Benjamin in the twilight years, he needed $ 10,000, but the famous doctor did not have that kind of money. The eldest son Michael tried to help his father, but he did not accept help. Spock's wife tried to collect the amount, referring to the admirers of the doctor, but did not have time. Spock died at the age of 94.

Published more than 70 years ago, Pediatrician Benjamin Spock's book, Child and Care, was published over 70 years ago, but is still a worldwide bestseller, with ardent supporters and fanatical opponents alike. How should it be now, in XXI century to perceive both the personality of Dr. Spock, and his book? We asked teacher Irina Lukyanova and pediatrician Tatyana Shiposhina about this.

Educator Irina Lukyanova

On the books of Dr. Spock, parents raised more than one generation of children. But in the 21st century, the doctor's authority was questioned: he gave the wrong advice, he was a bad father himself and even apologized for his recommendations - so you can't raise children according to Spock!

He really was a complex person and by no means an ideal father. The attacks on his book are due in part to the opposition to his political views, in part to the fact that the public has transferred the attitude towards Spock the politician and Spock the father to the professional Spock. But Spock is not a teacher. He's a doctor. The doctor who first told his parents: "Trust yourself, you know much more than you think."

These are comforting words for inexperienced dads and moms who fearfully take their first child in their arms: it is not clear how to hold him so that his head does not fall off, what to do so that he does not make such monstrous sounds. In the nineties, when my first child was born, Benjamin Spock's book "The Child and Caring for Him" \u200b\u200bwas my desk - and very favorably different from the harsh Soviet pamphlets that required sterility, discipline and regime. A calm, common-sense book by Dr. Spock seemed to allow parents to be themselves, relax and listen not to the categorical recommendations of doctors, not friends, but themselves and their child. He says right in the first lines about it: “Do not be afraid to trust your own common sense. Raising a child won't be difficult if you don't complicate it yourself. Trust your intuition and follow the advice of a pediatrician. The main thing that a child needs is your love and care. And this is much more valuable than theoretical knowledge. " And more: “… Good, loving parents intuitively choose the most correct decisions. Moreover, self-confidence is the key to success. Be natural and don't be afraid of mistakes. "

Dr. Spock explained to novice parents that it would be difficult for them, that it was normal, that they might have depression, that some children are easier, and others are more difficult, and they also live with this ... What if it seems to you that you do not love your child, then love and tenderness will wake up over time, and they may not be there in the first days, and this is also normal.

You don't need to sterilize everything. You don't have to constantly weigh your child. You do not need to measure the temperature in the bath with a thermometer - just try it with the back of your elbow.

Revolution in the nursery

Actually, Dr. Spock's book is not a pedagogical textbook. This is a medical reference for parents, and most of the book is devoted to such pressing problems of the first year of life as navel healing, colic, restless sleep, vomiting, hiccups, constipation and diarrhea, diaper rash and rashes, infections and vaccinations. This is just an aspiring mother's encyclopedia, where all the frequently asked questions were brought together long before the internet. Now many of the doctor's recommendations are outdated (for example, it would never occur to anyone to offer a bottle-fed child the products listed by the doctor that were considered acceptable in the forties). Perhaps now one of Spock's recommendations has been completely refuted - to put the baby to sleep on his tummy so that he does not choke if he spits up. It has been proven that sudden infant mortality syndrome is directly related to sleeping on the stomach.

And many recommendations from those that then seemed insanely bold and crushing foundations, now, on the contrary, seem too conservative - for example, supporters of joint sleep will probably be outraged by the doctor's recommendation not to take the child into his bed. However, when my child screamed for hours at night, I also followed not this recommendation, but another: listen to yourself and your child. And in pre-Internet times - it was a detailed and sensible collection of information about what a child is and what to do with him.

Edition 1991

Now we no longer see in what historical conditions this book appeared. By the middle of the twentieth century, medicine made serious progress and achieved a lot in the fight against unsanitary conditions, and pedagogy had long realized that a child is not just a small adult, only stupid, but a very special creature worthy of separate study. But before that, medicine insisted on a tough regime and sterility, and pedagogy on obedience and discipline. The child was supposed to be fed by the hour, not to be taken in his arms, so as not to spoil, swaddle tightly and not come up to any cry. Actually, this is how Dr. Spock himself was raised - my mother herself could have diagnosed a child with malaria from a family doctor's reference book (and the diagnosis turned out to be correct) - but she raised the children rigorously and without any warmth. The children were afraid of her and desperately lied to her. They loved my father, but he hardly ever took care of the children.

Dr. Spock's book is originally titled "A Common Sense Book on Baby and Child Care." It really is based on common sense and love: parents, do not be afraid to spoil the child by feeding him beyond hours. If you want to kiss a child, kiss it, it is not dangerous and does not spread the infection. Fathers, help mothers and love your children.

All this was completely revolutionary at that time. And the book became a bestseller, and it was sold in crazy circulations: the first circulation was 10 thousand copies, but by the end of the first year 750 thousand were already sold, and then the circulation exceeded 50 million in 42 languages.

Without unnecessary tenderness

Benjamin Spock's father graduated from the prestigious Philips Academy and Yale University, served as general counsel on the railroad. He was "harsh but fair," in Spock's own words, but the children rarely saw him. The mother was a housewife and brought up five children in an iron discipline: she knew exactly how to teach them, treat them, temper them, who they could be with and with whom they could not. Children slept in the open air all year - on the porch. Their mother treated them herself, punished them severely. Spock's biographers found out that the result of such upbringing was rather sad: four of Mildred Spock's children had to seek help from psychiatrists. In one interview, Spock said that when his sons were children, he never kissed them - "and now I hug them immediately when I see them." Maybe - he simply did not know how, did not learn to show tenderness, although he knew and understood how children need it.

Ben Spock followed in his father's footsteps - to the same school and the same university, and first decided to study English literature. He was a rower and with the varsity team that represented the United States at the 1924 Paris Olympics, won Olympic gold.

It is said that he loved ships and thought about a career as a sailor; someone advised him to become a ship's doctor. One way or another, he changed faculty and began to study medicine - first at Yale, then at Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1929.

In 1927 he married Jane Chini, the daughter of a wealthy silk manufacturer. Jane helped him write his famous book - she reprinted it many times, demanded to correct obscure places, looked for medical information, consulted with doctors. Socialist Jane influenced her husband's political views: Republican Ben became a Democrat. She bore him two sons. They lived together for 48 years and divorced in 1976: he decided to marry a second time. And she suffered from alcoholism. After the divorce, both of Spock's sons took their mother's surname. “They scolded me for not showing more affection for them when they were children and for being tough,” he said in one of his interviews. "This is from the thoughtlessness of a person who is absorbed in his work."

Grow by Spock

Having brilliantly graduated from the university, Spock graduated from an internship and began working as a pediatrician - first in a clinic, then in private practice. In addition, he taught a pediatrics course at Cornell, one of the best universities in the country. Working with young patients, he realized that parents often turn to him not so much with medical problems as with questions of care and education: how to feed? When to give complementary foods? Can you often pick it up? Should I get seasick? How to punish? What if he sucks his thumb? And if he refuses to sit on the pot? In order to answer these questions, he had to seriously study child psychology; he was the first pediatrician to seriously study psychoanalysis and wrote the book "Psychological Aspects of Pediatric Practice", dedicated to the psychological climate in the family where the child is growing.

But families kept asking questions - and eventually it became clear to Spock that young modern parents desperately needed a detailed guide. And that it should be written on a solid scientific basis - but with the full understanding that parents know their child best of all - and that, above all, the child needs the love of the parents.

Benjamin Spock. 1968 year

Listening to a child, hearing him, respecting his personality - all this was a revolutionary discovery for post-war parents. The baby boomer generation was raised on Spock's ideas - and over time they became generally accepted truths of both pediatrics and pedagogy.

However, some parents took Dr. Spock's words "the child knows what he needs" so close to their hearts that they took his advice as an idea not to limit the child in anything and let him do whatever he sees fit. Spock himself constantly objected to such an interpretation of his recommendations and even specially supplemented the book with a chapter on discipline: he is not against discipline as such, he is against discipline without love, against education by fear of punishment.

But also against permissiveness. He writes about the younger generation of parents who were raised harshly by their parents - and who now uncritically accept the theory of love education: “But often such parents misinterpreted such theories, for example, believing that children do not need anything but parental love, that children cannot be forced to obey that it is impossible to interfere with the manifestation of their aggressive instincts towards parents and other people, that parents are to blame if there are educational problems, that when children behave badly, parents should not be angry or punish them, but show even greater love. These misconceptions do not apply in the real world. A child brought up on such principles will become more demanding and capricious. In addition, the child will feel guilty, realizing that he goes too far in bad behavior. " He insists: “The child needs to know that his parents also have their rights and that, despite their friendliness and affectionate treatment, they can be firm and will not allow him to act unreasonably and rude. The child will love these parents more. This teaches the child to get along with other people. "

Nevertheless, the label of a propagandist of permissiveness was glued to him - however, a quarter of a century after the publication of his book.

Corruptor of the nation

The baby boomer generation had grown up — the first free generation, some said; a corrupted generation, others said. When the Vietnam War protests began, Dr. Spock joined them: he did not treat children to be killed. A convinced democrat, he considered this war a shame for his country, publicly opposed it - and in 1967, together with Martin Luther King and Jane Fonda led the famous anti-war march - "March on the Pentagon", and then was sentenced to two years in prison for supporting conscripts who burned their subpoenas (the sentence, however, was overturned on appeal). US Vice President Spiro Agnew accused Spock of promoting permissiveness and corrupting the nation; the renowned preacher Norman Vincent Peel, who supported the Vietnam War, said Dr. Spock had ruined two generations by demanding that the needs of children be immediately met. And the baby boomer generation itself has been nicknamed "the Spock generation" - depraved and spoiled. And the circulation of Spock's books began to fall.

Spock responded with great dignity: “Since these accusations were first brought forward twenty-two years after the publication of The Child and Caring for Him, and since those who write how harmful my books are, they certainly notify me that they have never did not use it - I think it is perfectly clear that my political position is unacceptable for them, and not the pediatric councils. "

Nevertheless, among the supporters of harsh upbringing and corporal punishment, of which there are many among American conservatives (and there are quite a few among American Christians), the idea of \u200b\u200bthe harmfulness of Dr. Spock's books is still alive and popular. The daughter of the popular preacher Billy Graham dropped a remark on television - they say, Dr. Spock did not tell us to spank the children, otherwise this is violence against their little personality, and Spock himself committed suicide. Gossip has gone for a walk around the world, the Internet is full of it.

This is not true: Spock's sons are safe and sound (although their relationship with their father was not rosy - in the home life, the doctor was a difficult person). One of them, Michael, headed the childhood museum in Boston before retiring, while the other, John, had a construction business. Michael's son Peter, who suffered from schizophrenia since childhood, did commit suicide at the age of 22 - but this family tragedy can hardly be somehow connected with the pedagogical ideas of Dr. Spock.

Finale: no money, but with jazz

Spock wrote several more books; the last one, “A Better World for Our Children: Rebuilding the Values \u200b\u200bof the American Family,” focused on the most painful issues in American society. Dr. Spock said in an interview that politics is also part of pediatrics. He has taught, appeared on radio and television, and has written columns for popular magazines. After his divorce from his wife in 1976, he married 33-year-old Mary Morgan, who became his political associate; they took part in protest rallies together, they were arrested together. She became his secretary, stylist, and nutritionist - by the end of his life the doctor became a vegetarian: he was seriously ill, almost could not walk, and on a vegetarian diet he lost 20 kg and began to walk again.

They settled in Arkansas. They lived by the lake, and Spock rowed daily. Then they completely moved to a houseboat - almost until his death, Spock and his wife lived on boats, and only in the last years of his life did he move to land at the request of a doctor. He was distinguished by powerful health and died at the age of 95. By this time, almost nothing remained of his royalties for millions of copies: he generously distributed money - and supported candidates from the Democratic Party, and donated to charitable foundations.

The widow had to publicly raise money to pay the $ 10,000 hospital bill. Spock bequeathed to bury him merrily, in New Orleans style: with jazz and dancing. The widow fulfilled his will.

And the book is still on sale. Today's parents do not even realize that in many ways they continue to raise children according to Spock, without even reading it.

About (and not only) Dr. Spock

Dr. Spock's book was written in 1946 and translated into Russian for the first time in 1956.

I studied at the Leningrad Pediatric Medical Institute in the 80s. I can say with confidence that the Leningrad school was the leading one in the USSR. And in the 80s, and later - we, young doctors, were taught to feed the child strictly according to the regime, according to the hours. We were taught not to "rock" the child. Do not carry it in your arms. So I fed and "raised" my two sons. But only the "stone" heart will not flinch when the child screams in the crib! Of course, I violated the "system". And show me someone who did not violate!

I had to retrain, having already become a "middle-aged" doctor. For the past ten years, pediatricians have been teaching young mothers to feed their babies “on demand”. That is, with a slight stretch, "according to Dr. Spock." Both "swinging" and holding the child in their arms from breaking the "system" became the rule. Yes, at one time the ideas of the doctor made a "revolution" in the system of caring for newborns.

But ... any "coup" warns us not to throw out the baby with water. In the end, every mother must come to the conclusion that the child will develop his own diet. And this regime will be the one that we have been suggested to adhere to from time immemorial. After 3 hours, after 3, 5 hours, after 4 hours ...

Poor mummies who have not had enough sleep, with circles under their eyes! Depressed. Popping their breasts at any cry of a poor child. How many people have I seen! Sometimes I had to say, and quite strictly: “Not earlier than three hours later! Mode!! No “free” feeding! And sleep, sleep, sleep! "

There are exceptions to every rule. As always, benefits and harms go hand in hand, and you need to have some instinct, even, I would say, wisdom, in order to extract from any "system" exactly what suits your child and you. You don't have to be a fan of the "system". Neither traditional, nor Dr. Spock, nor any other. Read Spock, Masaru Ibuka, and any modern psychologists and educators close to you in terms of views.

For example, Leonid Roshal was a categorical opponent of sleeping a child on his stomach, as this increases the risk of death from mechanical asphyxia. The provisions on supplementing a baby with sweet water, on mixed feeding of a child, on supplementing him with milk with sugar syrup are hopelessly outdated and even harmful. Of course, in hungry years, children grew up, even if they were fed with chewed bread wrapped in a rag. Only in such cases nothing is said about the highest infant mortality rate.

We live in our own time, in our own conditions. The lines of infant formula are now very extensive, there is a large selection of various adapted mixtures, both hypoallergenic and lactose-free, etc. In the days of Dr. Spock there was no such knowledge about immunity, about antibodies, about allergies. Therefore, the statement of Dr. Spock about the absence of a connection between the health of the child and the type of feeding it was recognized as false by the World Health Organization. By the way, this statement did great harm: it became a guide for women who refused to breastfeed their children.

The doctor's provisions on the introduction of complementary foods, on the fight against stool peculiarities, with colic and constipation are outdated. Lactase deficiency was not diagnosed, which is now detected in a day and amenable to treatment. Few then thought about gluten intolerance. Swaddling provisions are outdated. Some statements about the physical and psychomotric development of the child, about childhood neuroses, such as stuttering, biting nails, and so on, are erroneous.

I would like to emphasize once again that young parents can read any literature. But if you have taken this path - be objective, do not rush into the "system" as some kind of ultimate truth. Read the articles both for and against the system. Check with an experienced doctor.

Choose wisely, and approach your child with love. Love will tell you what to do and when to run to the doctor.

Biography

Benjamin Spock was born on May 2, 1903 in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of a successful Dutch-born lawyer Ives Spock and housewife Mildred Louise (Stoughton) Spock. The family had six children. Benjamin was the eldest, so from childhood he was used to taking care of children.

After graduating from high school, Spock entered Yale University, where he initially studied English and literature, and was also fond of sports. Given his height (189 cm) and excellent physical characteristics, Ben was soon accepted into the varsity rowing team (rowing, eight), whose performance at the 1924 Olympics in Paris brought the United States a gold medal. Benjamin Spock became Olympic champion.

Despite excellent results in sports and good knowledge in the field of philology, Spock chooses medicine as his vocation. The "unconscious craving for medicine" won out: after studying for several years at the medical faculties of Yale and Columbia Universities, Spock became a doctor in 1929.

An active opponent of Benjamin Spock was the Soviet doctor Leonid Roshal. In particular, he warned against sleeping on the chest, since in the latter case there is a risk of death from mechanical asphyxia.

Publications in Russian

• Spock B. About raising children. - M .: AST, 1998.
• Spock B. About life and love in simple words. For teens 12 and up. - M .: Pilgrim, 1999.
• Spock B. Parents' problems. - M .: Potpourri, 1999.
• Spock B. Conversation with the mother. - M .: Litur, 2001.
• Spock B. Child. Care and education from 3 to 11 years old. - M .: Phoenix, 2001.
• Spock B. To young people about love and sex. - M .: Owl, Eksmo, 2002.
• Spock B. Feeding the newborn. - M .: Owl, Eksmo, 2003.
• Spock B. Infancy problems. - M .: Owl, Eksmo, 2003.
• Spock B. Behavioral problems in young children. - M .: Owl, Eksmo, 2003.
• Spock B. First two years of life from Dr. Spock. - M .: Potpourri, 2007.
• Spock B. Book for parents from Dr. Spock. - M .: Potpourri, 2008.
• Spock B. School years from Dr. Spock. - M .: Potpourri, 2008.
• Spock B. Child and caring for him. - M.: Potpourri, 2014.

Write a review on "Spock Benjamin"

Links

• in the library of Maxim Moshkov

Notes

Excerpt from Spock, Benjamin

When Princess Marya began to cry, he realized that she was crying that Nikolushka would be left without a father. With a great effort on himself, he tried to return back to life and transferred himself to their point of view.
“Yes, they must feel sorry for it! He thought. - And how simple it is!
“The birds of the air neither sow nor reap, but your father feeds them,” he said to himself and wanted to say the same to the princess. “But no, they will understand it in their own way, they will not understand! This they cannot understand, that all these feelings, which they value, all ours, all these thoughts that seem so important to us that they are not needed. We cannot understand each other. " And he fell silent.

The little son of Prince Andrey was seven years old. He could hardly read, he knew nothing. He went through a lot after that day, gaining knowledge, observation, experience; but if he had possessed then all these after acquired abilities, he could not have better, deeper understand the whole meaning of the scene that he saw between his father, Princess Marya and Natasha than he understood it now. He understood everything and, without crying, left the room, silently walked up to Natasha, who followed him, looked shyly at her with pensive beautiful eyes; his raised, ruddy upper lip quivered, he leaned his head against it and began to cry.
From that day on, he avoided Desalles, avoided the Countess who caressed him and either sat alone or timidly approached Princess Marya and Natasha, whom he seemed to love even more than his aunt, and quietly and shyly fondled them.
Princess Marya, coming out from Prince Andrey, fully understood everything that Natasha's face had told her. She did not speak with Natasha anymore about the hope of saving his life. She alternated with her at his sofa and did not cry anymore, but she prayed incessantly, turning her soul to that eternal, incomprehensible, whose presence was now so palpable over the dying man.

Prince Andrew not only knew that he was going to die, but he felt that he was dying, that he had already half died. He experienced a consciousness of alienation from everything earthly and a joyful and strange lightness of being. He, without haste and without anxiety, expected what lay ahead of him. That formidable, eternal, unknown and distant, whose presence he never ceased to feel throughout his entire life, was now close to him and - by the strange lightness of being that he experienced - almost understandable and felt.
Before he was afraid of the end. He twice experienced this terrible painful feeling of fear of death, of the end, and now he no longer understood it.
The first time he experienced this feeling was when a grenade spun like a top in front of him and he looked at the stubble, at the bushes, at the sky and knew that there was death in front of him. When he woke up after a wound and in his soul, instantly, as if freed from the oppression of life that held him back, this flower of love, eternal, free, independent of this life, blossomed, he was no longer afraid of death and did not think about it.
The more he, in those hours of suffering solitude and half-delirium that he spent after his wound, pondered the new beginning of eternal love that was open to him, the more he, without feeling it, renounced earthly life. To love everyone, to always sacrifice oneself for love, meant not to love anyone, meant not living this earthly life. And the more he became imbued with this beginning of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he destroyed that terrible barrier that stands between life and death without love. When, this first time, he remembered that he had to die, he said to himself: well, so much the better.
But after that night in Mytishchi, when half-deliriously the one he wished appeared before him, and when he pressed her hand to his lips and began to cry quiet, joyful tears, love for one woman imperceptibly crept into his heart and again tied him to life. And joyful and disturbing thoughts began to come to him. Recalling that minute at the dressing station when he saw Kuragin, he now could not return to that feeling: he was tormented by the question of whether he was alive? And he dared not ask it.

His illness went on in its physical order, but what Natasha called: it happened to him, happened to him two days before Princess Marya's arrival. This was the last moral struggle between life and death in which death was victorious. It was the unexpected realization that he still treasured life, which seemed to him in love for Natasha, and the last, subdued attack of horror at the unknown.
It was in the evening. He was, as usual after dinner, in a slight fever, and his thoughts were extremely clear. Sonya was sitting at the table. He dozed off. Suddenly a feeling of happiness overcame him.
"Oh, she came in!" He thought.
Indeed, in Sonya's place, Natasha, who had just come in, had just entered with soundless steps.
Since she began to follow him, he has always experienced this physical sensation of her closeness. She was sitting on an armchair, sideways to him, blocking the candlelight from him, and knitting a stocking. (She learned to knit stockings ever since Prince Andrey told her that no one knows how to go after the sick like the old nannies who knit stockings, and that there is something soothing in knitting a stocking.) colliding spokes, and the brooding profile of her drooping face was clearly visible to him. She made a movement - a ball rolled off her knees. She shuddered, looked back at him and, shielding the candle with her hand, with a careful, flexible and precise movement, bent, lifted the ball and sat down in its previous position.
He looked at her without moving, and saw that after her movement she needed to breathe deeply, but she did not dare to do this and carefully took her breath.
In the Trinity Lavra they talked about the past, and he told her that if he were alive, he would forever thank God for his wound, which brought him back to her again; but since then they have never talked about the future.
“Could it or could it not be? He thought now, looking at her and listening to the light steel sound of the spokes. - Was it really only then that fate brought me to her so strangely, so that I could die? Did the truth of life really open to me only so that I could live in a lie? I love her the most in the world. But what should I do if I love her? " He said, and he suddenly involuntarily groaned, out of a habit that he had acquired during his suffering.
Hearing this sound, Natasha put her stocking down, bent over closer to him and suddenly, noticing his glowing eyes, approached him with a light step and bent down.
- You are not asleep?
- No, I've been looking at you for a long time; I felt when you entered. Nobody like you, but gives me that soft silence ... of the other world. I just want to cry with joy.
Natasha moved closer to him. Her face beamed with ecstatic joy.
- Natasha, I love you too much. More than anything.
- And I? She turned away for a moment. - Why too much? - she said.
- Why too much? .. Well, how do you think, how do you feel in your heart, with all your heart, will I be alive? What do you think?
- I'm sure, I'm sure! - Natasha almost screamed, with a passionate movement taking him by both hands.
He paused.
- How good! - And, taking her hand, he kissed her.
Natasha was happy and excited; and at once she remembered that this was impossible, that he needed calmness.
“However, you were not asleep,” she said, suppressing her joy. “Try to sleep… please.
He released, shaking her, her hand, she went over to the candle and again sat down in the same position. Twice she glanced back at him, his eyes shining towards her. She asked herself a lesson on a stocking and told herself that until then she would not look back until she finished it.
Indeed, soon afterwards he closed his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and suddenly woke up anxiously in a cold sweat.
Falling asleep, he thought all about the same thing that he thought about all the time - about life and death. And more about death. He felt closer to her.

On July 14, 1946, Benjamin Spock's book, Caring for a Child with Common Sense, appeared on the shelves of American bookstores. At the dawn of the third millennium, there is hardly a mother who does not know that a child should not be swaddled tightly and not necessarily fed on a schedule. But in the middle of the 20th century, these "strange" advice from Dr. Spock became a real sensation ..

"Caring for a Child in the Spirit of Common Sense" was the title of a book that excited the whole world, and in the USA it took second place in popularity after the Bible and became a reference book for young parents. For 55 years, Child ... has gone through six reprints, has been translated into 42 languages, including Urdu (Iran and parts of Afghanistan), Thai (Thailand) and Tamil (Sri Lanka), and the total circulation of the book has already exceeded 50 million copies.

The future advisor to all young parents was born in 1903 in New Haven (Connecticut, USA) in the family of a successful lawyer. Spock, altered from the Dutch Spaak, is the ancestral name of a family of settlers who settled in the Hudson Valley. Benjamin's mother Mildred Louise, a strict and domineering woman, accustomed to hiding her feelings, was the embodiment of Puritanism. At that time, Dr. John Watson was considered one of the main authorities on "children's issues" in America. “Never, never kiss your child,” he severely punished young parents in his book “Psychological education of an infant and child”. It looks like Mildred-Louise was a diligent student of Watson.

Spock was the first to use psychoanalysis to understand the needs of children.

In addition, the pedagogical arsenal of the parents of that time, according to the Boston Globe, consisted of "inveterate manuals, judgments inherited from the Victorian era, teachings from grandmothers and friendly, but not always competent, advice from neighbors, mothers-in-law and mother-in-law." In protest against the methods of upbringing practiced, in particular, in his family, after leaving his childhood, Benjamin Spock wrote his book.

For most American dads and mothers, the new "manual" seemed to open a window from a stuffy room into the world of smells and colors. Even Mildred Louise, after reading her son's essay, said: "Well, Benny, in my opinion, is very good." And young mothers read The Child as a bestseller. “I have a feeling,” one of the readers admitted in a letter to the author, “as if you are talking to me, and most importantly, you consider me a reasonable being…”.

The eldest of six children in the family, Benjamin had to learn in full what a nanny's care is. "How many diapers I changed, how many nipple bottles I brought!" - he told about his own childhood. Not surprisingly, Spock was sympathetic to the mothers. And when he was in the war as a psychiatrist, he was shocked at how cynically she nullified all parenting efforts.

Up to 40 million children born in the 1950s-1960s were brought up "according to Spock"

In 1943, he began a book on childcare “in a spirit of common sense”: “Some young parents feel that they should give up all pleasures simply out of principle, not for practical reasons. But too much self-sacrifice will not benefit you or your child. If parents are too busy only with their child, they are constantly worried only about him, they become uninteresting for others and even for each other ... ".

It is common sense that should be the basis of child education, argued Dr. Spock: “If the child is crying, comfort or feed him, even if the feeding schedule is violated. But do not rush to the baby headlong, as soon as he whimpers. If the child cannot or does not want to do something, do not force him ... ".

Benjamin Spock admirers argue that The Child and Caring for Him, written during the Franklin Roosevelt presidency, reflected the common sense of Roosevelt's New Deal, which helped America not only survive the hardships of the 20th century, but also become the strongest power in the world ... Opponents of the "Spock-style" upbringing believed that he had shaken the Christian foundations of society: “The Bible teaches that a person is initially wicked. All carry the curse of original sin. Spock abandoned the Christian paradigm. The methods of education suggested by the doctor were based on allowing the child as much as possible. "

Benjamin Spock himself said that he tried to implement the ideas of two major thinkers of the early 20th century - the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, as well as the American philosopher and educator John Dewey, who believed that “it is not at all necessary to drive children into adulthood using disciplinary methods - they may well become adults of their own accord. " Children raised according to the advice of Dr. Spock showed character as early as the 60s, going out to protest against the Vietnam War. And the doctor himself from the very first days of the war began to oppose it. The respectable physician was threatened with serious troubles, but he deliberately took the risk: "There is no point in raising children in order to then let them burn alive." In 1968, Benjamin Spock was found guilty of aiding and abetting young draft evaders in the United States military. The doctor faced two years in prison, but the court of appeal overturned the sentence.

In the USSR, Spock's book was published in 1956 and made a real revolution

Overall, parenting has affected Dr. Spock's "adult life." “I have never kissed my sons,” he said. And the children, apparently, suffered a lot. The youngest, John, admitted that he felt abandoned. The eldest, Michael, was also not happy with his father's pedagogy: “Our Ben always thought in extreme categories. Everything with him was either only bad, or only good ... And if I did something wrong, I could always fully feel how disapproving my father was of my act. "

The doctor did not have a relationship with the mother of his children, Jane. According to the testimony of people close to the Spock family, she was his first assistant in preparing the book, but all the time she felt underappreciated. Mental discomfort resulted in Jane's alcoholism, which completely destroyed the marriage. In 1975, the couple divorced, and soon Mary Morgan, a woman 40 years younger than him, became Spock's companion.

A terrible blow occurred in 1983, when, at the age of 22, Spock's grandson Peter committed suicide, and all family members felt as if the doctor blamed them for not paying attention to the depression that pushed the guy to a disastrous step. How Benjamin Spock experienced what happened can be judged by his words: "Work, career, we need to be relegated to the background, so that things are not above all for us, so that they do not take so much time, depriving the opportunity to communicate with family ..."

Dr. Spock ran for President of the United States in 1972

Benjamin Spock died at his home in San Diego, having suffered a heart attack, stroke and six severe pneumonia shortly before his death. He was offered hospitalization, but Mary, knowing that her husband would not live outside the home for two weeks, did not agree to this. Home health care bills ran up to $ 16,000 a month. Taking into account the fact that the family's annual budget was about 100 thousand dollars, it was not possible to pay such bills. Therefore, Mary Morgan turned to her friends and acquaintances for help. When the press reported it, letters and money orders were sent to Benjamin Spock.

“I hate the atmosphere of a government funeral with all my heart,” the doctor wrote in his memoir Spock on Spock. "I hate a darkened room, people with elongated faces, silent, whispering or sniffing, assistant stewards trying unsuccessfully to portray grief ... My ideal is a Negro funeral in the spirit of New Orleans, when friends walk, dancing, like a snake to the sound of a jazz band."